It wasn't even self-pity any more. It had grown above self-pity to a realism beyond tragedy.
She felt icy and empty and alone as she lit a cigarette. Through the taper smoke, the glowing amphitheatre seemed like a golden porpoise lapped in dawn, and coupled with the expanse of the Haven it nestled in the night to resemble a sleeping question mark, an entity gay and sad and full of what was called life.
There was no turning back now. There was no turning back, even to Earth, for that would be the most humiliating defeat of all.
Then she was inside the first sandsled. The sled moved noiselessly out of the garage and whispered away over the sands.
After only a few minutes the radio frightened her with an abrupt voice like that of a disembodied spirit.
"Madeleine!"
She looked back through the trailing skeins of moonlight. A dark spot was overtaking her. She couldn't go any faster. Evidently Don had one of those racing sleds that hardly seemed to touch the sand at all.
"Madeleine! Please—for God's sake, don't see that old hermit!"
"For the sake of which God, Don? I understand the Martians had more than one."
"Madeleine! I'm begging you to come back!"